The new service means customers can check, read, reply, forward, delete, compose and send emails on their Telstra mobile.

Telstra Chief of Products, Consumer and Marketing, Mr Rick Wakeham, said the launch of Yahoo! Mail for SMS follows last year’s successful launch of Yahoo! Messenger for SMS, which enabled customers to send and receive instant messages from mobiles or PCs.

“The extension of the Yahoo! service to Telstra Mobile customers adds a new level of flexibility and convenience,” Mr Wakeham said.

“As our customers become increasingly mobile they are looking for new ways to stay in touch and Yahoo! Mail for SMS enables them to do this online with friends and colleagues locally and around in the world."

David Gowdey, Corporate Development Manager, Yahoo! Australia & NZ said the new service provides users with a list of recently received emails, which they can then choose to read either via SMS, or wait until they return to their PC.

"It’s an intelligent choice as that way they only pay for the messages they need to read on the spot," Mr Gowdey said. Yahoo! Mail also utilises Spamguard security feature, meaning users are not inundated with unwanted messages.

To use the service, customers must have a free Yahoo! Mail account (available at mail.yahoo.com.au). To sign into Yahoo! Mail for SMS, customers must send their Yahoo! ID number and password from their handset via SMS. Customers will then receive a confirmation message on their handset that activation has been successful. Customers will not incur a charge to receive this confirmation message, nor will they be charged for receiving welcome messages, error or help messages.

Further instructions are at http://au.mobile.yahoo.com/sms/mail/. Similarly, to use Yahoo! Messenger for SMS, customers send their Yahoo! ID and password as a SMS to sign in and can then start exchanging Instant Messages with Yahoo! Messenger Friends.

These services are available to Telstra pre-paid and post-paid customers. Telstra customers will be charged the standard SMS rate for each message they send from their mobile phone to either a PC or another mobile phone and 25 cents (GST incl.) for each Yahoo! Messenger for SMS and Yahoo! Mail for SMS message sent to their handset.